Russka is the story of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of Russia. From a single riverside village situated at one of the country’s geographic crossroads, Russia’s Slav peasant origins are influenced by the Greco-Iranian, Khazar, Jewish, and Mongol invasions. Unified by this one place, the many cultures blend to form a rich and varied tapestry. Rutherfurd’s grand saga is as multifaceted as Russia itself.

Sarum: The Novel of England

In Sarum, Edward Rutherfurd weaves a compelling saga of five English families whose fates become intertwined over the course of centuries. While each family has its own distinct characteristics, the successive generations reflect the changing character of Britain. We become drawn not only into the fortunes of the individual family members, but also the larger destinies of each family line.

Paris: The Novel

Internationally best-selling author Edward Rutherfurd has enchanted millions of readers with his sweeping, multigenerational dramas that illuminate the great achievements and travails throughout history. In this breathtaking saga of love, war, art, and intrigue, Rutherfurd has set his sights on the most magnificent city in the world: Paris. Moving back and forth in time across centuries, the story unfolds through intimate and vivid tales of self-discovery, divided loyalties, passion, and long-kept secrets of characters both fictional and real, all set against the backdrop of the glorious city.

The Rebels of Ireland

Edward Rutherfurd's stirring account of Irish history, the Dublin Saga, concludes in this magisterial work of historical fiction. Beginning where the first volume, The Princes of Ireland, left off, The Rebels of Ireland takes us into a world transformed by the English practice of "plantation", which represented the final step in the centuries-long British conquest of Ireland.

New York: The Novel

New York is the book that millions of Rutherfurd's American fans have been waiting for. A brilliant mix of romance, war, family drama, and personal triumphs, it gloriously captures the search for freedom and prosperity at the heart of our nation's history.

Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga

The saga begins in tribal, pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and mighty High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers whose travails cleverly echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From that stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the reader on a powerfully imagined journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a memorable cast of characters we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.

King Rat: The Epic Novel of War and Survival

The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

A Place Called Freedom

This lush novel, set in 1766 England and America, evokes an era ripe with riot and revolution, from the teeming streets of London to the sprawling grounds of a Virginia plantation. Mack McAsh burns with the desire to escape his life of slavery in Scottish coal mines while Lizzie Hallim is desperate to shed a life of sheltered subjugation to her spineless husband. United in America, their only chance for freedom lies beyond the Western frontier - if they're brave enough to take it.

Edge of Eternity: The Century Trilogy, Book 3

Throughout these books, Follett has followed the fortunes of five intertwined families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they make their way through the twentieth century. Now they come to one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the enormous social, political, and economic turmoil of the 1960s through the 1980s, from civil rights, assassinations, mass political movements and Vietnam to the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution - and rock and roll.

The Haj

Leon Uris retums to the land of his acclaimed best-seller Exodus for an epic story of hate and love, vengeance and forgiveness. The Middle East is the powerful setting for this sweeping tale of a land where revenge is sacred and hatred noble. Where an Arab ruler tries to save his people from destruction but cannot save them from themselves. When violence spreads like a plague across the lands of Palestine - this is the time of The Haj.

Exodus

Exodus is an international publishing phenomenon - the towering novel of the 20th century's most dramatic geopolitical event. Leon Uris magnificently portrays the birth of a new nation in the midst of enemies - the beginning of an earthshaking struggle for power. Here is the tale that swept the world with its fury: the story of an American nurse, an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a glorious, heartbreaking, triumphant era. Here is Exodus - one of the great best-selling novels of all time.

Gai-Jin: The Epic Novel of the Birth of Modern Japan

The heir to the magnificent English trading company, the Noble House; the direct descendant of the first Toranaga Shōgun, battling to usher his country into the modern age; a beautiful young Frenchwoman forever torn between ambition and desire - their lives intertwine in an exotic land newly open to foreigners, gai-jin, and torn apart by greed, idealism, and terrorism. Their passions mingle with monarchs and diplomats, assassins, courtesans, and spies.

Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV

After the death of his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, 22-year-old Louis steps in to govern France. He’s still a young man, but one who, as king, willfully takes everything he can get—including his brother’s wife. As the love affair between Louis and Princess Henriette burns, it sets the kingdom on the road to unmistakable scandal and conflict with the Vatican. Every woman wants him. He must face what he is willing to sacrifice for love.

Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome

Weaving history, legend, and new archaeological discoveries into a spellbinding narrative, critically acclaimed novelist Steven Saylor gives new life to the drama of Rome's first 1,000 years - from the founding of the city by the ill-fated twins Romulus and Remus, through Rome's astonishing ascent to become the capital of the most powerful empire in history.

Shogun: The Epic Novel of Japan: The Asian Saga, Book 1

A bold English adventurer; an invincible Japanese warlord; a beautiful woman torn between two ways of life, two ways of love - all brought together in an extraordinary saga of a time and a place aflame with conflict, passion, ambition, lust, and the struggle for power.

Tai-Pan: The Epic Novel of the Founding of Hong Kong: The Asian Saga, Book 2

It is the early 19th century, when European traders and adventurers first begin to penetrate the forbidding Chinese mainland. And it is in this exciting time and exotic place that a giant of an Englishman, Dirk Struan, sets out to turn the desolate island of Hong Kong into an impregnable fortress of British power - and to make himself supreme ruler: Tai-Pan!

Peter the Great: His Life and World

This superbly told story brings to life one of the most remarkable rulers––and men––in all of history and conveys the drama of his life and world. The Russia of Peter's birth was very different from the Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped. Crowned co-Tsar as a child of ten, after witnessing bloody uprisings in the streets of Moscow, he would grow up propelled by an unquenchable curiosity, everywhere looking, asking, tinkering, and learning, fired by Western ideas.

As the Crow Flies

When Charlie Trumper inherits the barrow his grandfather used to peddle fruit and vegetables in turn-of-the-century Whitechapel, England, he inherits his enterprising spirit as well. Charlie's deeply held ambition to raise himself out of the poverty of London's East End is destined to be realized, but there are many obstacles to overcome, including a tour of duty at the front in World War I, where he encounters the man who will become his lifelong enemy.

The Far Pavilions

When The Far Pavilions was first published 19 years ago, it moved the critic Edmund Fuller to write this: "Were Miss Kaye to produce no other book, The Far Pavilions might stand as a lasting accomplishment in a single work comparable to Margaret Mitchell's achievement in Gond With the Wind." From its beginning in the foothills of the towering Himalayas, M. M. Kaye's masterwork is a vast, rich, and vibrant tapestry of love and war that ranks with the greatest panoramic sagas of modern fiction.

Publisher's Summary

Russka is the story of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of Russia. From a single riverside village situated at one of the country’s geographic crossroads, Russia’s Slav peasant origins are influenced by the Greco-Iranian, Khazar, Jewish, and Mongol invasions. Unified by this one place, the many cultures blend to form a rich and varied tapestry.

Rutherfurd’s grand saga is as multifaceted as Russia itself: harsh yet exotic, proud yet fearful of enemies, steeped in ancient superstitions but always seeking to shape the emerging world. Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, and Lenin all play their roles in creating and destroying the land and its people.

In Russka, Edward Rutherfurd has transformed the epic history of a great civilization into a human story of flesh and blood.

What the Critics Say

“Rutherfurd literally personifies history.” (New York Daily News)

“Impressive…Rutherfurd has indeed embraced all of Russia.” (Washington Post Book World)

“Russka succeeds where [other books] of trendy Soviet-watching have failed…Rutherfurd can take his place among an elite cadre of chroniclers such as Harold Lamb, Maurice Hindus, and Henri Troyat.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

I was so very glad to discover you had added Russka to you Edward Rutherford's books. He is a truly wonderful writer, whose's books are exhaustively researched and very accurate, yet full of characters that make a wonderful novel - Wonderful!

I only wish you'd release his other works "The Forest". "London", etc in a unabridged format. Abridging these novels is almost a sin.

I am a huge fan of Rutherfurd, I love big books and history. I did listen to Russka twice back to back to firmly implant the family names in my mind, and I found I enjoyed it more the second time around. The book gave me a little different view of Russian history than I had. All I can say is, it has to be good to listen to it twice. I found the narration of Wanda McCaddon very good as well. I had enjoyed her in Sarum.

I began to find the relationships and outcomes somewhat predictable. Although I love historical fiction -- it's the only way for me to put the facts into a context -- I'm disappointed by pat outcomes and unlikely coincidences. I would have liked a little more time with fewer characters.

What about Wanda McCaddon’s performance did you like?

The delivery was clear and her shift between voices was adept. I never felt lost in a conversation.

Any additional comments?

I love this kind of giant, challenging novel. I'm always sorry when they approach the present and I know I will be leaving it all behind.

I chose to listen to this book in preparation for my 3-week trip to Russia. My prior understanding of Russia had been picked up from Dr. Zhivago and remembering the Cold War when Krushchev was their leader. Rutherfurd has done an excellent job of putting Russian history into story form. In fact, after the trip, I listened to the book a second time because now I can put some things in perspective with what I had experienced when I was there. What a great learning experience!

I waited for this book to come out on Audible for a long time. I read it back in the 90s, and this audio version does not disappoint. I love the mingling of different narratives throughout the history of Russia. It truly helps the reader understand how a Russian mentality is different from our own Western mentality.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This book is too long to listen to in one sitting. It has different narratives spanning the entire history of Russia, so it is easily broken up into smaller (but still very substantial) parts.

This story follows the Russian/Ukraine people from approximately 100 AD to the present. It's an ambitious task and was well done. Despite the hundreds of characters the story flowed well although in they all intertwined in the end sometimes I felt a story line had been left "hanging". The book does an excellent job of going thru the various politics that have an impact on today's global struggles. I found myself "googling" places and looking at Maps to get an idea of "where" things were happening. Over all an excellent read.

Wow, compared to New York this one was really tough to get thru, I guess it was one of his early books, Saram was Ed R. hometown(Salisbury) so that explains why it being his first book was good as it was filled detailed facts although poorly written the narrator was good. Russka’s narrator was subpar and the story except for the the 20th century section seems to lack any detail. Of course the 20th century had detail as this requires no research. I felt Ed R. does not like or respect Russians based on the characters in the novel.I do like long audio books and Russka certainly is not a complete waste of time, reading Paris now, which has far better writing and narration.

Despite the wonderful history lesson each of Edward Rutherfurd's books provides, I stopped this one part way through. I did learn that Russians had been oppressed systematically long before the Soviets and got a sense of the vastness of the land and its effect on the people. However, the stories seemed too grim and not as engaging as his other books. I've usually found with Rutherfurd's books that if one period doesn't hook you as much, the next one will, but none of them did for me. Unless you are passionate to learn about Russia, this might be one to pass on. I still wish I'd finished it, but it turned into 'work', which isn't my goal with Audiobooks!

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